Rob Spahr / NJ.comTrenton Diocese Bishop David M. O'Connell walks through a crowd of thousands of Catholics during the first day of the diocese's first Eucharistic Congress.

HOLMDEL – Thousands of Catholics are descending on the PNC Bank Arts Center this weekend for the Diocese of Trenton’s first Eucharistic Congress.

The three-day event – which will serve as the Diocese’s observance of Pope Benedict XVI’s call for Catholics to take part in a “Year of Faith” – began Friday morning with more than 7,000 Catholics, mostly teens from the Diocese’s 109 parishes and 44 schools, gathering at the PNC Bank Arts Center. The Congress will continue through Sunday with various services and outreach efforts.

Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed the Year of Faith to begin on Oct. 11 – to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council – as an attempt to get people throughout the world to seek a deeper conversion and renewal in the faith.

Friday’s first day of the Eucharistic Congress – themed “His Presence. Our Faith. Celebrate!” – included a Mass celebrated by Bishop David M. O’Connell, an outreach effort to package food for people in western Africa and live music performances.

O’Connell’s homily was crafted specifically for his young audience. He said that even though there have been World Youth Days in other countries before, they were making history.

“This is Youth Day: Jersey style,” said O’Connell, while standing on the stage on which some of the most famous musical acts in the world have performed.

“Today (the stage) will welcome another important guest, the most important guest to appear and be present anywhere. He doesn’t have a Facebook account and he cannot be contacted on Twitter. .... He won’t appear with great fireworks, dry ice or a spectacular light show,” O’Connell said. “He comes today not to perform but, rather, to give himself to us, to give us his life … completely and forever. His name is Jesus, Jesus Christ.”

The theme throughout O’Connell’s homily was friendship.

“You and I are very lucky. We don’t have to invent our friendship with the Lord Jesus. It is a gift and a grace that we have first received from him,” he told the students. “But like all good friendships, we have to want to keep it alive, to embrace it and make it stronger. The fastest way to lose friends is to ignore them even though they do not ignore us. Can you imagine having a friend and not talking to him or her? No way. (Our Catholic faith is also) a gift and a grace that we have first received from God through the Church. But we have to learn more about it, deepen it, strengthen it, practice it, share it, live it so we can love it.”

William Belluzzi, the principal of Holy Cross School in Rumson, brought all of his school’s seventh and eighth-grade students to the first day of the Eucharistic Congress.

Belluzzi said his students did not neccesarily need to reconnect with their faith, but that being at a faith-based event with thousands of their peers helped reinforce their faith.

“When teens have problems, who they tend to talk to first – if they talk at all – is their peers. By having so many of their peers all in one place, it makes them more proud of who they are and realize that they’re here for a purpose,” said Belluzzi, adding the students will have the messages from the Eucharistic Congress intigrated into their classroom lesssons.

Red Bank Catholic student Regina Burns agreed that the event was an excellent opportunity for people to better understand Catholicism.

“It’s a great experience, because we’ve never had anything like this before,” said Burns, 17. “And by everybody coming together and getting better connected, it strengthens our community.”